This invention relates generally to social networking, and in particular to measuring interaction within a social networking environment with web content external to the social networking system.
Social networking systems have become prevalent in recent years because they provide a useful environment in which users can connect to and communicate with other users. Although a variety of different types of social networking systems exist, these systems commonly provide mechanisms allowing users to define and interact within their social networks. In this context, a user may be an individual or any other entity, such as a business or other non-person entity. Accordingly, while enabling social communications among friends, a social networking system can also be a valuable tool for businesses to engage with potential consumers. Even without a commercial purpose, a social networking system may allow other types of entities to spread their message. For example, a non-person entity may set up a page or group that other users can join (or become a “fan” of), which enables the non-person entity to provide a forum to receive and transmit communications to a group of interested users.
Providers of web content external to a social networking system often want to gather demographics and other information about consumers of their products or web content, such as a website or individual web pages. However, such information typically is fairly limited, based on information provided by the consumer directly, and/or compiled by independent web analytics providers. Web content providers have not yet been able to exploit the relationships and connections among members of a social networking website in a meaningful way. The reason is that such web content typically is not readily tied to users of the social networking system. For example, if it were desirable to track whether users within the social networking system interacted with web content external to the social networking system, the information necessary to track the web content would have to be provided to the social networking system.